environmental – The Paper and Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC)

Pitting Packaging Materials Against Each Other Misses the Bigger Picture

Circular Economy, General, Paper and Plastics Packaging, Paper Packaging / By Rachel Kagan

Recent media articles on the potential of paper packaging to replace some of the single-use plastic items being banned in Canada, such as shopping bags and take-out food containers, miss the bigger picture of waste management and consumption in Canada. Some articles have shared concerns raised by some environmentalists about shifting from plastic to paper packaging …

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Article Overlooks the Importance of Recycled Content

Circular Economy, Corrugated Boxes, Paper Packaging, Paper Recycling, Recyclable, Recycled Content, Recycling, Sustainable Forest Management / By Rachel Kagan

In the November 28th New York Times Magazine article, Where Does All the Cardboard Come From? I Had to Know, writer Matthew Shaer does a deep dive on what he refers to as the “cardboard economy” – everything from the history of who invented it, how it’s made, and its global marketplace.

Statistics Canada’s New Waste Management Survey Results: Paper Represents 35% of Diversion

Circular Economy, General, Industry News, Waste Diversion / By Rachel Kagan

On November 15, 2022, Statistics Canada released the results of its biennial Waste Management Survey, containing waste diversion data for 2020, broken down by material type and diversion source (residential and non-residential). The new data shows that Canadian households and businesses diverted 9,903,027 tonnes of waste in 2020, and of the total amount diverted, 3,502,683 tonnes were …

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Little Green Lies: Q&A with Author John Mullinder

Paper Packaging, Paper Recycling / By Rachel Kagan

The Paper and Paperboard Packaging Environmental Council (PPEC) sat down with its former and long-standing Executive Director, John Mullinder, who helped formed PPEC in 1990, and retired in February 2021. John recently published his new book, Little Green Lies and Other BS, which focuses on environmental claims and advertising; it is a follow up to …

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Recycled content must be recognised in setting circular economy targets

2 Comments / Blue Box, Paper Packaging, Paper Recycling / By John Mullinder

The Ontario Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) is in the process of considering what it calls specific material “management” targets for Ontario Blue Box recyclables such as paper, plastic, glass, steel and aluminum. It has already stated that it wants to see a collective 75% Blue Box diversion rate, up from the current …

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Circular Economy or spinning our wheels?

Paper Packaging, Waste Diversion, Waste Strategy / By John Mullinder

The Circular Economy (CE to some) has become something of a buzzword of late, just like sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) before it. Good intentions, but a lot of public relations too. Perhaps we’re being too cynical, but the issue is a bit like climate change. We know it’s coming (most of us) or …

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China doesn’t want the world’s garbage any more

2 Comments / Corrugated Boxes, Paper Packaging, Paper Recycling / By John Mullinder

And who can blame them? For years, the world has been shipping all sorts of waste to China for it to be sorted, made into new products, and shipped back to us. Low labour rates and lax environmental enforcement have benefitted all parties to this commercial deal (even perhaps the Chinese workers, a job being …

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Canada diverting only 27% of its waste

Recyclable, Waste Diversion / By John Mullinder

For those promoting a more circular economy where materials are used again and again rather than made, used and dumped, the latest data from Statistics Canada provides a solid gut check on how far we have to go. Only 27% of our waste is currently being diverted from landfill or incineration. The “good” news is …

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The good, the bad, and the ugly about Ontario’s Blue Box

2 Comments / Blue Box, Uncategorized / By John Mullinder

The good news is that the reported recovery rates for almost every single material category in Ontario’s Blue Box have improved over the last 13 years, some by as much as 20 percentage points. The bad news is that several categories have made very little progress and lag way behind the others, and that the …

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False and misleading claims removed from IFCO website

1 Comment / Uncategorized / By John Mullinder

The North American paper packaging industry has served notice that it will challenge (legally, if necessary) any false and misleading claims about its operations and environmental impact. Case in point: major plastic crate supplier, IFCO. IFCO is lobbying North American grocery retailers to move away from the traditional corrugated box system of delivering fruit and …

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